“Last night,” Courtney went on, “this man came to the gaming tables at L’Oiseau d’Or here in the Vieux Carré, and threw down his money as if he scattered pebbles on a beach. I saw with my own eyes the fantastic winnings he made, while the rest of us lost. Madame Pollock, who is the proprietress of the establishment, finally requested him to leave.”
“And did he?”
“In his own good time he gathered up his winnings and went out, laughing at us.”
A picture of this barbarian from the West was beginning to take form in my mind. An uncouth blond giant, wealthy and ruthless. A man whose appearance in town had somehow shaken Uncle Robert as I would not have believed possible. The picture made me curious and I wondered when I would have a chance to see this man for myself.
Courtney had fallen silent, unhappy in his own thoughts. I stole a look at Delphine, but she sat like a statue opposite us. Quite clearly she was there to lend propriety to the occasion and nothing more. But I was not deceived. I knew how watchful she could be, how little she missed. Probably she was tucking away our entire conversation in order to report it to Uncle Robert later. It would be just as well to get away from the subject of Justin Law, which so disturbed my uncle.
I remarked on an old building we were passing. Windows with heavy cypress blinds were set deep in thick walls and the patina of soft gray age lay upon it.
Courtney made an effort to throw off his gloomy thoughts. “That was formerly the convent of the Ursuline nuns. It is one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans. Forgive me, mam’zelle, for intruding my personal problems. It was my intention to make the afternoon interesting for you.” Now his eyes rested on me again in a way that was bold and warm, and not unpleasing.
“I’m enjoying every moment of it,” I told him quickly. And added, with a sly look at Delphine, “In the North I’ve been accustomed to walk about as I please. Here I find that Creole life is likely to imprison a woman.”
Courtney frowned at the thought of my wandering the streets of the Vieux Carré alone. “Jamais, mam’zelle. Never must you walk about alone. The French Quarter has grown increasingly rough since the war. It returns a little to the wildness of the early days. Never would it be advisable for a young lady of good family to venture out alone. You might well be insulted. So many of les bonnes familles have moved away. The section is filled with too much of what the Americans call riffraff.”
I could hardly take his words seriously. The teeming streets about us seemed too busy to be anything but safe. And it was clear that many of the gentils mixed with the variegated throng. But my attention had been caught by a term I had heard used strangely since coming to New Orleans.
“Why do you say ‘Americans,’ as if you were not one of us?”
“It is a term we have grown accustomed to.” Courtney’s shrug was expressive. “We mean, I suppose, strangers from other states. Particularly Northerners. The Creole has never resigned himself to being anything but French and Spanish.”
Apparently Courtney ignored his own American blood and considered himself wholly Creole. And I, of course, due to my upbringing, would be considered wholly American.
We drove past the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral, flanked by the old buildings of the Presbytère and the Cabildo, and Courtney told me they had been built long ago by the wealthy Don Almonaster upon the smouldering ruins of the French city.
Across Chartres Street was Jackson Square—once the old Place d’Armes of New Orleans. And stretching along each side of the Square, Courtney explained eagerly, were the most romantic buildings of all. The Pontalba apartments, which had been built by Micaela Almonaster de Pontalba, Don Almonaster’s colorful daughter.
Courtney glanced at me slyly and then away. “In a certain manner you remind me of Micaela. But naturally a young woman like yourself would not be interested in that lady’s unconventional history.”
Of course this interested me at once and I urged him to explain. He told me she had lived a dramatic and extravagant life abroad for many years, and when she returned to New Orleans in 1848 she had been dismayed to find business moving away from the French Quarter and too many Creole families leaving the section. The Baroness had thrown her great wealth into plans for beautifying Jackson Square and building these apartments on either side along St. Ann and St. Peter Streets. Their construction was inspired by the Palais Royal buildings in Paris, and she intended them to support the architecturally beautiful buildings her father had erected.
Courtney shook his head sadly. “For a time some of the best Creole families lived in the apartments, and some still do. But sections have been sold to outsiders and are falling into neglect and disrepair. It is to be regretted.”
“But why do I remind you of Micaela?” I asked, still tantalized.
He bent toward me, his eyes warm, laughing. “One day perhaps I shall tell you, mam’zelle. But it will be on a day when you do not wear a hat.”
Delphine moved, coughed faintly and I glanced at her quickly, found her looking upon me in a strange appraising way. But her eyes evaded mine and I knew there was some undercurrent here I did not understand. And I could not coquette with Courtney by coaxing him to explain.
We drove on around the Square and the turned back toward home. To my disappointment the river was hidden from view by the levee and the dock sheds. Over the sheds rose the masts of ships, well above the town. I determined that one of these days I must walk up there and have a look at the river.
Courtney asked a few polite questions about the North and I tried to give him a picture of the little New England town in which I had grown up. I felt as I talked, however, that my words interested him little and that his attention was given to watching me, rather than listening to what I said. And I could not tell whether the afternoon had been a success or not. I wanted this young man to like me, wanted to like him, but we belonged to different worlds and we had not yet found the way to bridge the gap of strangeness between us.
When we reached the Tourneau house, Courtney helped me out, bowed over my hand most courteously, and thanked me for the afternoon. Nevertheless, I sensed a disappointment in him. For that reason I was all the more surprised when he spoke again just before I went through the gate.
“My mother has been most interested in hearing of your visit to New Orleans,” he said. “She would like me to bring you to call on her, if you care to do so.”
“Of course,” I said, “I’d love to visit her.” And I tried to smile at him warmly to make up for the lack he might have felt in me.
When I went upstairs to my room, Mama was waiting at the door to pounce upon me.
“Tell me all about your drive!” she cried. “How did you like the young man?”
“I like him very well,” I told her coolly. “But you might as well know that neither he nor his mother have the wealth you imagined. All that was lost during the war.”
Mama regarded me in dismay. “Ah, the war, the war!” she murmured.
I knew she felt she had been robbed anew through the wickedness of the North.
“But then,” she went on, half to herself, “I cannot understand why Robert—”
I spoke impatiently. “You’re mistaken in thinking Uncle Robert had any special intention behind throwing Courtney and me together. This was your idea, not his.”
But never would she admit being caught in one of her little fabrications. She shrugged as if the matter were of no consequence and went out of my room.
SIX
On Monday morning, after breakfast, Aunt Natalie said she would be happy to have my company on a trip to market, if I cared to come with her. I was only too eager for further exploration of the Vieux Carrè. Especially when I learned that Aunt Natalie liked to make her market trips afoot, accompanied by Delphine.
I wore again my old brown foulard and was glad enough to put on my brown hat in order to hide my hair from the stares of New Orleans.
Again the streets teemed with an activity one hardly dreamed of from the
seclusion of hidden courtyards. Delphine walked behind us, decorously carrying a large reed basket, and my aunt paid her no attention. Once, when I stole a backward look, I saw that the woman walked as proudly as though she led a procession and she seemed to have only scorn for lesser colored folk whom we passed along the way. I found myself wondering what report she might have given Uncle Robert about my drive with Courtney yesterday.
When we reached Jackson Square, we turned toward the river, walking beside the high iron fence that surrounded the Square. I could glimpse tropical foliage within and walks with inviting benches. When I had persuaded the Tourneaus to permit me out alone, I would come here and explore the Square, sit in the sunshine on one of those benches. I knew from my mother’s tales that this had been the old Place d’Armes of history. New Orleans had changed flags several times on this ground.
But now Aunt Natalie led the way toward the somewhat tumbled-down sheds of the old French Market on ahead. It was necessary, she pointed out, to make the most of the cool of the morning. The day already promised to be sultry and warm.
To me the market was a delight. Its stands of brilliant flowers and exotic foodstuffs offered rich color on every table. There were bright piles of pomegranates, golden mangoes, bananas both red and yellow, with the contrasting hues of vegetables in stalls next to them. There were odors too—of fish and spices and coffee, and the ever-present dankish smell of the great river. Everywhere women were doing their early morning shopping and there was much good-natured arguing and bargaining going on all around us. Parrots squawked in their cages, chickens clucked. Piles of crabs crawled upon one another, waving their claws aloft. In the street wagons clattered by and drivers shouted. It was a place that teemed with life and excitement. I had been shut in long enough to respond to it eagerly.
Aunt Natalie attended at once to the serious business in hand. She pursed her plump mouth as she concentrated on a basketful of strangely shaped squashes, then spoke rapidly in French to the vendor. At length a selection was deposited in Delphine’s capacious basket, and we went on. Often she consulted the colored woman, whose judgment she clearly relied upon. On occasion she turned aside to indulge in a friendly exchange of talk with ladies of her acquaintance.
Shopping, it appeared, was to be a lengthy affair and the market beckoned me to explore further. Gradually I let distance grow between Aunt Natalie, Delphine and me, so that I could wander more freely. I watched the Indian squaws who sat on blankets selling powdered filé—ground-up bay leaves, sassafras roots and goodness knows what, for the making of gumbo filé. A woman nearby noted me as a stranger and explained what it was.
Twice I circled the long arcaded market, with its slate roof slanting shedlike over the flagstone banquettes. During that time Aunt Natalie and Delphine moved no more than three stalls. Now they were studying the comparative excellence of tiny river shrimp. Did not Delphine agree that these would be delectable for gumbo? Delphine agreed solemnly and I found myself smiling. I lacked, I fear, the patience to move so slowly when it came to filling a market basket. I would have bought eagerly from all that was luscious and appetizing, figuring out later what to do with my booty. But that was hardly the housewifely Creole way.
Since my two chaperones paid little attention to me, letting me wander as I pleased, I took the opportunity to leave the market shed at the far end and walked toward the opening of a narrow street that beckoned me with its strangeness. Other streets of the Quarter buzzed with the sounds of men and women going about the business of the day. There was laughter, the chatter of voices, the echo of horses’ hooves. But this short, narrow street seemed empty and deserted. Even in the sunlight there was something hushed and guarded about it.
Curious to know its secret, I stepped on the flagstones laid across an open gutter and followed the banquette past tightly closed shutters and archways that seemed like dark caves. Here the glimpsed courtyards were neglected and weed-grown. The faint air of decay that haunted the entire Quarter gave way to signs of real dilapidation. Here a shutter hung, awry, there a wall crumbled to ruin. Why? I wondered. What sickness ailed this street? Why should it stand deserted, while others rushed with life? Where were its inmates on this bright and golden morning?
As I walked along I was startled by a sound like a muffled scream in one of the houses. It was choked off so quickly, however, that I could not be sure I had heard it and blamed an uneasy imagination. I had begun to feel that so secretive a street must hide some great iniquity.
Halfway along the square I became suddenly aware that a man was watching me. I had not seen him because he leaned against a wall, half hidden in the shadow of an arch. The broad hatbrim pulled over his eyes hid his face and he puffed lazily at a cigarette. When I came opposite him, he pushed the hat carelessly back on his forehead, the better to stare at me, and in the brief glance I gave him I saw that he looked for some reason amused.
Since I was well within sight and hearing of the bustling market, I refused to be made nervous by a stranger who stared at me in bold insolence. Giving him not another glance, I wandered on, looking about me with what I hoped was the air of a lady at ease and idly curious about her surroundings. Probably it was my hair again which attracted attention. I was accustomed to amusement from those who knew no better, and it was likely that such a deviation from the normal would be all the more noticed in brunette New Orleans. I would, I decided, walk to the end of the square, then return to the market at a leisurely pace. I would not under any circumstance notice the rude fellow who watched me.
The street retained its secretive quiet until I had reached the curb at the end of the square, and turned to retrace my steps. Then a green-shuttered door on my side of the street was thrust open and a man stumbled down the two steps to the street. He was red-faced and disheveled. By his garb and the tattooing on his arms, I knew him for a seaman. The reek of alcohol was evident even from where I stood. I expected him to reel out of my way across the street in the same direction in which he was headed.
Unfortunately, however, I was close enough to catch his attention and he saw me and spat out a stream of unclean words. Before I could cross the street, he stumbled toward me and reached out a hand to catch my arm. I turned to escape his filthy grasp, stumbled on the rough banquette and fell to my knees. His fingers closed upon the ribbons of my hat. He pulled it from my head with a cry of glee and tossed it into the gutter. Then he reached for me again.
In my fright, I did not know that the man across the street had intervened until he caught my assailant by the scruff of the neck and wrenched him away from me. Moving as calmly as though he brushed at a fly, he pushed one big hand into the seaman’s face and sent him sprawling across the deep gutter. In the next moment I felt myself lifted in two strong arms. My rescuer’s face was very close to mine and for one strange instant I looked up into eyes intensely blue and felt in me a sudden sense of destiny. To love, or to hate—one or the other. No woman could ever be indifferent to such a man.
Then he set me upon my feet, removed his hat and bowed to me politely, though I sensed a hint of laughter beneath his courtesy. He was unbelievably tall and broad of shoulders—a giant of a fellow. And in this town of dark-haired men and women, he had a curly thatch of yellow hair, thick and shining in the sun. His chin, I thought, was made of iron, and there was a straight hard look to his mouth, despite the grin that lifted one corner. The words “blond barbarian” rang in my mind and I wondered if this was the man of whom I had heard so much—Justin Law, the brother of Courtney.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked curtly.
“He—he just frightened me,” I faltered. I could feel my hair slipping over my shoulders and with hands that still betrayed me by shaking, I tried to gather it up, thrust back its pins and regain some semblance of dignity. My rescuer regarded me with bold eyes which paid me no pretty compliments, but made me aware that I was a woman.
“What do you expect if you walk on Gallatin Street?” he asked. “It’s a good thing most
of its denizens sleep by day and prowl by night.”
“I—I don’t know anything about the street,” I admitted, wondering why I should trouble to apologize for my presence.
He turned his back on me and walked to the banquette’s edge where the seaman sprawled half into the gutter, and hauled the fellow out.
“Be on your way,” he said. “You’ve had worse tumbles than this one.”
The sailor took the opportunity to get out of reach as quickly as possible. My rescuer stared ruefully into the gutter.
“If you wish,” he said over his shoulder to me, “I can fish out your bonnet. But I doubt that you’ll care to wear it again.”
I shuddered. “Please let it go. It was an—an old one anyway. And thank you for coming to my aid.” I turned to walk away. For some reason I had an impulse to flight. It was as if some instinct told me that if I stayed within reach of this man I was lost. But I had no choice for he came with me.
“I’ll see you back to the market—if that’s where you’ve wandered from,” he told me. He did not offer his arm as a gentleman like Courtney would have done, nor did he pay the slightest attention to my protest that I could certainly walk that distance alone.
He strode beside me in silence and I was sharply aware of the force and strength of the man. One could sense the vibrant life that flowed into his walk, into the vigorous swing of his long arms. If this was Justin Law, then I knew neither Courtney nor Uncle Robert would approve of my being in his company, yet I could do nothing but go with him.
Not until I saw Delphine coming toward us from the opening to the street did I think of the explanations I must now make. Delphine’s face registered thorough disapproval. My Aunt Natalie was a kindly soul and her displeasure would not last long. But there was something formidable about Delphine. She had left her market basket behind and her hands were crossed severely at her waist. The guinea-blue dress swished about her feet with the firmness of her steps. A few yards away she stopped, waiting for me to reach her, as a nurse might wait for a truant child. The pause gave her still greater advantage and made me feel a suppliant for forgiveness.
Skye Cameron Page 6